[Assignments] Assign to everyone except selected students

There are some assignments that go out to the majority of my students except one or two per class. It would be great to be able to assign to "everyone" and then have a button to select which students are exempt from the assignment.

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166 Comments
betiana_capriol
Community Novice

Thanks!

On Sat, Nov 26, 2016 at 2:47 PM, cynthia.laudadio@msdk12.net <

corey_jeffers
Community Novice

 @sara_samples ​, have you given the modification of sections a try? This is working reasonably well for a few teachers at the middle school.

sara_samples
Community Novice

I have not. I figured I'd try it second semester. Smiley Happy

On Sun, Jan 8, 2017 at 12:00 AM, Corey Jeffers <instructure@jiveon.com>

jessgri
Community Explorer

I came hunting for this. I teach a grad/undergrad class and have 7 assignments for the undergrads which are replaced with one long, in-depth assignment for the grads. Without this feature, in order to differentiate the assignments, I have to hand-select 27 undergrads 7 different times (since there is also no easy way to clone an assignment) in order to not get those 7 assignments to show up for the 3 grad students. This is tedium of the highest order. It would be so much easier if there were a way to "add everyone" and then remove a couple of students. 

kimberly_smith1
Community Participant

Help please?! I have 95 students in my Gen Psych class. This week I have a student who has a legitimate reason for taking the online exam one day early. In the current system, it sounds like I will need to type in 94 students names (not scrollable) in order to assign the regular-exam at the regular time for 94 students, and then 'Add' this one student to assign a different due date for her.

I am trying to come up with a workaround. I am thinking that I might create an alternate-exam for this student with an earlier due date. But if I cannot remove this one student's name from the 'Assign to' list of the regular-exam (unless I type the names for the other 94 students individually), how might I prevent her from taking both exams?

If I create an alternate-exam for this one student, is there a way to prevent the regular-exam from counting against her in the Gradebook? I use assignment groups with a straight points grading system. In this assignment group there are five exams, and the 'rule' is set to "ignore lowest 1 score" (keep highest four) in this group. Thus, I cannot just enter a zero for this student on the regular-exam. Though this would make that regular-exam score (zero) be the one that gets ‘ignored’ in this assignment group, it would also allow her to keep her points for five exams, while other students only keep points on four exams (lowest 1/5 scores dropped).

The exam is worth 210 points. If I were to just leave the regular-exam score as a dash (no score), in an effort to only count the alternate-exam score, would it still increase this one student's Gradebook denominator by 210 points? If I manually enter the score she earned on the alternative-exam into the cell for the regular-exam, would this prevent her from taking both exams (even though there was no "submission" for the regular-exam)? If I were to manually enter the score she earned on the alternative-exam into the cell for the regular-exam, and then delete the alternate-exam from the course, would there still be a history for her on this exam (in either the Quiz 'View Log' or SpeedGrader)?

Has anyone already come up with a better workaround solution? Thank you!!

kimberly_smith1
Community Participant

P.S. It seems like this function is somehow already present in the existing code? If I type a students name into the same box next to "Everyone", an "Everyone Else" appears. Might this be modified such that we could use this 'Everyone Else' to exclude individual students?

   267000_pastedImage_3.png 266999_pastedImage_2.png

If this is not feasible, might it be possible to replace the "Everyone" message in the 'Assign To' box with a list of all the students' names, one that is automatically populated, so that the exceptions could be removed from there? Something like what is seen once we finish manually typing in all of the names (except those we want to exempt),  

267001_pastedImage_1.png

A similar functionality seems available for "Message Students Who..." option in the Gradebook, where student names automatically populate, and instructors can then remove ("X") those they do not want the message to be sent to.

cmw1229
Community Novice

You can also create different assign dates and release dates within the same test.  Just assign that students first then everyone else.  I do this with my multiple sections in A-day B-day block scheduling. 

The above solution does not solve the problem if you actually have two different versions, i.e. one is reduced for ADA accommodations.

cmw1229
Community Novice

I have over 120 students and I need to exclude two students from paper assignments because they take it electronically, per IEP/ADA accommodations, via the quizzes section.  However if I do not exclude them then the paper assignment shows up missing in their to do list, grade-book, calendar, assignments, etc.

It is not realistic for me to type in 118 names every time I have to do this, especially when it is done 3-4 times a month or more. Can we please have an exclude option, if not at assignment time then in the grade-book so it will clear out for my students and not show as missing or due.

kimberly_smith1
Community Participant

Hello Chrissy,

Thank you for the tip. I can see how this might work well when you know in advance which students will be assigned a different date/time. Unfortunately, this is often not the case for me.

cmw1229
Community Novice

I have had students who needed to take a test at a later date and I found out after the fact also or I extended the due date for 1 or 2 students.  You can still go in and click Add in the assign to and add the student separately even when it was assigned to everyone at first. 

I created this one earlier this week and just adjusted the due date for one student.

273573_pastedImage_1.png

Hope this helps Smiley Happy